Van Morrison Album by Album Discussion: Part 1 (1968-1977)

yes, just working the room to get some folks to see/hear Iron & Wine.

 

What is Iron & Wine?

If you guys like Van's more acoustic stuff then check out the album "Lift" by Work Of Art for some great acoustic songs. See my avatar.

 

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=127848
see here for Iron & Wine...and I promise no more thread crapping til i conjure up some words on said topic Tupelo Honey....

 

Yeah come on dood, I've got a higher word count in this thread than you do.

 

well you're more verbose than I Jason (and I'm glad you are) writing pages and pages and you are putting tons of quotes in here...

Ok, Ok, i'm gonna put it on today...as soon as i can pull away from Iron & Wine...its not often a new album gets under my skin such as this one...oh there I go again....Tom gonna shoot me...

ok, will get it going today...

 

I'm just teasing. You have four more days to come up with something, take your time and enjoy that Iron and Wine album.

 

me too!

besides, i'm almost done writing...thats what lunch hours are for anyway? goofing off on here....

 

One of my favourite Van albums.

 

I'd concur. There's definite filler, but at the very least "Wild Night" and the title cut are better than anything on HB&tSC.

 

This is one of the records where I knew I was going to have trouble articulating about. It’s not really one I consider as a top favorite yet I realize thanks to Itunes partly, my play count on this one is quite high, really higher than all the others on my mobile device!

The title cut, I think is such a gorgeous track, and is a favorite of mine…found this on the internet….

some lyric additions….A posting to the van mailing list may/96 notes the existence of a lost verse to this song, here transcribed from a performance on the van morrison in ireland concert video:

Theres a rose pressed inside a bible
That she reads on the balcony
Shes sweet in slumber and Ive got her number
For the beginning of the century.

Van list member art siegel comments in nov/97 that I don’t think the rose in the Bible is a true lost verse, but rather one that van added to his live performances years after the originl

Here is, though, a true lost verse which is in the original sheet music:

I’ll tell a tale of old manhattan
Adirondack bus to go
Standing waiting on my number
And my numbers gonna show.

The Dusty Springfield cover version on has a variant of this:

I heard a tale of old manhattan
Ive never been there but I want to go
Standing waiting on my number
And my numbers gonna show.

I happen to love Dusty’s version of this song and if you haven’t heard it and like her, well its on her 3 cd anthology and I think Beautiful Soul and probably other things as well. She just “dustyfies” it perfectly.

Wild Night is another favorite of mine, one I’ve never tired of hearing. I got a kick out of that Mellencamp/M’Shell N’Degeocello cover version from his 25 minute “Dance Naked” album. A rare cover that’s as equally entertaining as the amazing original. How rare to find two covers as good as these two…

this is a really is a hard record for me to talk about and add to whats been said in here already. its generally a very pleasant summery kind of record for me, which is why I think its has so much ipod play, mostly in the summer knowing full well I’d be talking about it in here in the fall. But this album doesn’t generate an overly passionate response from me that so many of his albums do.

I too do like Roo You, I like the vibe of that song and I like Moonshine Whiskey, the song not the booze….the album really seems to capture a state of mind of happy loving and living which is easy to listen to cause it’s a state of mind I hope to always be in and live in. Mr. Tom said it well when he said you cant fake this kind of happiness and I agree with this. It’s a happy loving playful fun album and worth being in any Van collection.

Like someone else sort of said earlier in this thread; liking van albums ebb and flow over time, what you liked more before you like less now and vica versa.

 

I dig this album all well enough throughout. Although, every time I flip the vinyl I have a moment of cringe as Tupelo Honey starts. The reason for that is I'm expecting that version on A Night In SF where, is it Brian Kennedy(?) sings most of the song. I quite dislike that version. But, once the song gets going and my ears aren't smacked with that other syrupy-sappy voice, I fall right into it's musical hands.

I had forgotten that Templeman was involved here. Kinda weird to me to contrast this and Van Halen I.

 

Please, let's not use dirty words like "Brian Kennedy" until much later when we'll have no choice. . .

 

Here's some topical mood music:

"Wild Night"-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=k2HBw9K2kZI

"Moonshine Whiskey"-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=ad7zUUyA_5Q&mode=related&search=van morrison moonshine

"Tupelo Honey"-- http://youtube.com/watch?v=mZUbjFCvlC0

 

My problem with Mellencamp's version of this isn't that it's really poor in any way (though I generally find him quite boring), it's that it adds absolutely nothing to the original. What's the point of doing a cover if you're just going to play the original arrangement/performance note-for-note? It's like watching a tribute band.

Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower", or even Devo's "Satisfaction", now those are covers I can admire. They fit the song to their style.

 

I am surprised that there is little praise for "...Cannoball", that song stands as high as "Wild Life" and the "Tupelo Honey" as personal favorites. I love that song.

 

I also like "Old Old Woodstock". Side 1 was the side I listened to most when I had the vinyl.

I think we've mentioned almost every song on the album as being someones favorite.

 

This album starts of like a shot, with a bullet Wild Night was the most radio friendly Van track since Brown-Eyed Girl. It is a great song with imagery that befits a real Saturday night on the town. It also contains great lines, like "the girls walk by dressed up for each other" Having Ted Templeton, and pros like Ronnie Montrose and Connie Kay made the album much tighter and slicker, the back ground singers are in tune. While Van has a real interest in country music I feel the pedal steel and country flavorings are more the co-producer's addition. Then current trends towards country rock were making impact on the charts. This was combined with the marketing department's hippie farmer cover photo concept.

Notwithstanding the influence of Mr. Templeton it is Van's musicianship and poetry that shines through. Here his phrasing is jazzy, and confident throughout. He gives us hints of what is about to come in the two high points of the album, You're My Woman and Moonshine Whiskey. The band stretches out for extended grooves, ebbing and flowing Van gives us some poetry and some pure improvisation. He gives us streams of consciousness, impressions, flashes of feeling, and emotion to convey his deep feelings about the birth of his first child. Ultimately he avoids the schmaltz that usually sinks "new baby songs." I believe the way to enjoy these tunes, is to just let the music carry you along, and feel it, but when Van says "make it funky, funky as you wanna be.." I think the sax player holds back. At that point I want to hear honking, screeching and pure sheets of sound. Ted keeps it all a little too radio friendly.

HBSC was performed by a band built around the remnants of Colwell-Winfields Blues Band from Boston. That album sounds like a roadhouse bar band brought into the studio. Tupelo Honey sounds like west coast studio pros. They both rank about equal to me, both are great albums. If I had to choose I give HBSC a slight edge.

As for Van's drunken stupor, all I can say is he has been producing great work since then for over thirty years. He must have known something about what he was doing. All the Van bios turn out to be poison pills. Every person with an axe to grind gets his chance to cut Van down to size. I'm sure he is a difficult guy with substance abuse history, but he sure ain't lazy.

 

My Avatar

Tupelo Honey is a wonderfully packaged vinyl album. It has a gatefold cover with foldout poster (see my Avatar). It also has a Reprise/Warners inner sleeve listing other of their artists. I am speaking of the olive green WB logo original version. I don't know if re-issues included the poster or not.

Scott

 

i've not seen that poster before. Very cool thanks for sharing it.

 

It appears to be the same photo used for the Johnny Rogan bio of Van:

 

I didn't even know about that book, when people were talking about the Rogan book I thought they meant the one I read from the mid-1980s. Does this book start at the beginning (showbands and Them) again?

 

I don't have it. Info here:
http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/van.html

 

Seems to be true, i can't find a decent read on the man anywhere. I think if I was famous enough to be written about, I'd want the same for myself.

 

FWIW, I found a quotation from Van speaking about TH, where he said something like "I wanted to make a country and western album." Don't have the book with me at the moment, unfortunately.